Baby Fig Newton: Great Grandpa Sussex

Dyllan is the first great grandchild for my Grandpa Sussex. Its pretty cool seeing 3 generations together. We really enjoy spending time with Grandpa and feel right at home staying at his house. We look forward to our family dinners each night filled with stories from Grandpa's past. We have learned some pretty cool things... the man who designed Palos Verdes Estates is the same man who designed Central Park in Manhattan - his house was originally all green from green shag carpet to green pain inside and out (including door handles and tinted windows) - Grandpa met Grandma in 4th grade in Lynden, Wa. - Grandpa was part of the Marine Corps from 1949- 1952 - Grandpa and Grandma married in 1952 at age 21. After getting out of the Marines, Grandpa searched through the wanted ads to find out what the highest paying job was- then went to college, at University of Washington, to become an Electrical Engineer- After graduating with his degree in Electrical Engineering Grandpa and Grandma went to NYC (in the middle of winter with 2 ft of snow on the ground) for an interview with Bell Electrics- Although the offer was good, they decided snow and New York wasn't for them. Grandpa got offered several (to say the least) other jobs before he ended up taking an offer from Hughes Aircrafts that not only paid for his schooling (Masters in Electrical Engineering at USC) but let him take classes during company time. We were very impressed to hear that Grandpa was very influential at Hughes- He managed 2, 500 enginiers- but we were not suprised because his interpersonal skills to this day remain flawless. We are just as eager to learn from him as we can imagine those enginiers were. He also told us a cool story about how he started the "coffee pool"- where people would pay 5c for a cup of coffee to the pool and Grandpa would do the shopping (coffee, sugar, cups). The coffee pool ended up making so much money that Grandpa was able to get 4 season tickets each year to the LA Dogers Games- and divied it up among the 15 workers and their families.

Pretty neat, Grandpa!

Grandpa was equally clever and talented at home. He decided one day to make a sail boat from scratch to take the kids (4 kids) sailing in the Marina (Marina Del Rey). The sail boat was 8ft long and Grandpa and the kids enjoyed it for a few years until Grandpa sliced a chunk off of his thumb making a clete for the centerboard- that was the end of sailing for them. The family moved from Westchester to Palos Verdes when Eileen was in first grade. They bought this house for $100k and Grandpa spent 3 weeks each night after work scrubbing, scraping, painting and fixing it up so that it was in move in condition.